Ryan leaned against the wall in front of the lecture hall, scrolling through his Hotchpotch feed. He started following some more heroes recently because he figured he had to be more in-tune with that world if he wanted to get into heroics. However, most of them were just posting selfies from weird or dangerous places, thirsttraps that made even Ryan stop for a moment to take a second look, or putting out the most random text posts that probably should have stayed in the notes app.

  That being the case, these were all individuals with millions and millions of followers whose main focus was social media, rather than actual heroics. There were a few that were actually pretty well-regarded as heroes that actually did their intended job, but most of them were basically just influencers with a fancy costume.

  When it came to actual heroics, Ryan luckily didn't have to deal with any of this crap. He wasn't looking to be famous or anything, he just wanted to help people. Plus, being allowed to actually use his abilities out in public whenever he needed to was useful, too.

  Still, Ryan should still figure out how this stuff worked. The concept of 'heroics' as it was understood today was relatively new, and was basically ripped straight from comic books. In the past, whenever someone with powers gained through an Awakening committed crimes and the police didn't manage to do anything about them, people with the power to stop them just became vigilantes. People co-opted the term of 'hero' and 'villain' from comics and novels to refer to the criminals and vigilantes, and because it caused too much collateral damage to have untrained and unchecked individuals around just fighting and using their powers out on the street, some laws were passed that made it possible for heroes to act in a more official capacity. Plus, now they could actually be kept in check and managed.

  There were still some vigilantes here and there, mostly people that didn't find the need to take the required tests, or that failed those tests for one reason or another and decided they were going to try to be heroes anyway. Sometimes that resulted in those people getting designated as villains, but most of the time they were just considered regular criminals and arrested accordingly.

  Honestly, it was actually a bit of a stretch to expect that Ryan could become a hero. He had stopped counting how often he was arrested in the past, and one of the cases even went to trial once, though that case was dropped when Ryan revealed the context for why he beat the absolute shit out of the guy that was suing him. But he figured that with the power of the Aglecards, as unfair as it was to use that influence like this, that was something that could be taken care of easily.

  He slowly looked up from his phone as a slight, suppressed gasp sounded out. Ryan smiled and stepped toward them.

  "Nora! Just the person that I was looking for!" he swung his arm around their shoulder, and promptly moved Nora out of the way. It was threatening, for sure, especially because Ryan's strength stat was at 1.69 right now, so despite his frame and having a magical class, his strength definitely couldn't be underestimated. But obviously, Ryan also made sure not to hurt Nora any more. They did have a broken leg, though it was apparently doing pretty well already. They were limping and had some kind of leg-brace, but they weren't even using crutches.

  Beside that, it seemed like their arm was a bit stiff, and they had a few bruises on their face, though those could be easily taken care of with healing salves.

  "Wh-What do you want?" Nora stuttered as they looked up at Ryan. They were a good bit shorter than him. Ryan wasn't sure why, but he felt like he grew a bit recently, whether that was just because his posture was better now that he got proper workouts in, or because he actually just had a bit more growing left in him. It definitely helped how threatening he was. And well, Ryan wasn't exactly proud of it, but he was equally good at both subtle and not-so-subtle threats.

  "I just want to talk, alright?" Ryan said, making sure that they were out of everyone's earshot. "About Saturday."

  "... What, are you trying to make me shut up? About the truth?" They glared at Ryan, who just let out a long sigh.

  "And what is that truth?"

  Nora rolled their eyes. "That you used magic on us to make your party more exciting."

  "Wait, what? In your mind, that's the reason why we would have used magic on people? To make it more... exciting?"

  "Of course, why else would you be stupid enough to do that?"

  Ryan sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Listen, man. We have two magic users and one prodigious magical engineer living in our house. My uncle is Runar Aglecard, the head of the Aglecard foundation. We had all the booze anyone could have asked for, music that could literally make our pool float, and since it was our private property, Silvia and I could use our skills freely. Why the hell would we need to use spells to make people have more fun? It was already set out to be a fucking amazing party."

  Of course, that was the truth. Luckily, Nora wasn't actually there when the party got really out of control, so Ryan could fudge the truth a lot more easily. While it was true that there was no reason to use magic to influence anyone, it was true that there was magic that did exactly that, though it was an accident. But Nora didn't have to know about that.

  "Then what about that gas leak story? Some sketchy stuff went down after I left early, right? People got into fights, people hooked up all over the place. That doesn't happen at normal parties." As if they had caught Ryan in a trap, Nora crossed their arms. Though, they flinched as they did so, because of their injured arm.

  Ryan's eye twitched slightly at part of what they just said, but he would ignore it for the time being. He would definitely ignore it. He definitely...

  Ryan slammed his hand against the wall that Nora was leaning onto. "For the record. You did not 'leave early', I kicked you out because you called my little cousin a fucking monster. I don't know of a spell that makes you a bigot, so how'd you explain that, asshole?"

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  Nora shivered and shrank down, trying to move out of the tight space that Ryan had trapped them in.

  "I, uh... That's definitely not what happened, alright?" Nora said, almost as if they were trying to convince not just Ryan, but also themself. "I was just... just asking questions, you know? I mean, are you really sure that they're real? Aren't you just being tricked to-"

  "I know it's so fucking illegal for me to do this, but I'm going to beat your ass if you keep saying this shit," Ryan said with a deep, angry glare. If it had been physically possible for Nora to shrink back even more, then they definitely would have just now.

  "Listen, what does it even matter? You used magic on us, and it's why I got into an accident! What I said doesn't change how messed up that is!

  "Nora..." Ryan closed his eyes and sighed. "Listen, I'm sorry about what happened, but we didn't use a fucking spell on anyone. We had mana-cables that were installed wrong when we moved in, and they broke somehow. Bad fucking timing, but no, we didn't use a spell on you. A high amount of mana can just make people act weird."

  Nora immediately shook their head. "No, they said a spell was used on me!"

  "What do you think they test for? Unnaturally high levels of mana in your body. Unless a mage came along with a powerful identify spell, it's almost impossible to figure out more details than that."

  Nora was silent for a few moments. Ryan really hoped that this worked. At the end of the day, Nora was basically right about what happened, but Ryan was fully lying to them.

  "... Fuck you."

  "Excuse me?"

  "Fuck you. I don't care what you say, I know that some weird shit went down at your house. There's literally no way that a bit of mana exposure could ever make people act that crazy! I spoke to some of the people that stayed at the party, and from what they told me, some massive fights started and people went absolutely crazy!" Nora glared at Ryan, slowly moving away and back to a more open area. Obviously, Ryan didn't want to actually go as far as to stop them or hurt them any more. Sure, he did threaten them a bit, but that was mostly because of the 'Monster' stuff they were saying. So, with really no other choice, he just let Nora leave.

  Frankly, this was the last attempt he wanted to make to fix this that way. Lying like this absolutely sucked, and he just didn't want to do it anymore. Just lying to that pair earlier about what happened was horrible enough already, and Ryan felt like he was taking complete advantage of the power of the Aglecards in a way that felt purely unethical.

  But the truth was... Ryan couldn't reveal what really happened. Of course, he could physically say it if he wanted to, but the moment any sort of news spread even slightly, the Aglecards would intervene. Kim and the others had filled Ryan in on the way that the family dealt with things like this.

  All digital traces of events were wiped or altered through technomancers, and the media was manipulated otherwise through bribery or simply by writing false articles through the media networks that were affiliated with the Aglecards, officially or unofficially. They were deeply ingrained in basically every major governmental institution, too. Hell, that even included the OAA, who were the ones that they had to worry about the most. If it came down to it, Ryan was sure that the Aglecards would stomp out any full-on investigation, or make events shrink down to a level that could be disappeared by paying a small fine.

  And it wasn't even because Runar was the one orchestrating all of this. Most of this was done by the Pitz-Aglecard branch family, who were in charge of doing most of the outward-facing work such as the charities, and their job also included managing the family's reputation. Or, well, the lack of their reputation, for the most part.

  Runar already had limited control of the branch families. Sure, he could veto most things, but if all the elders were in absolute agreement on something, then that wasn't something that could be vetoed. And they would never disagree on something small like this. They would never risk the truths of the family coming to light because a couple of people got hurt. That was Ryan's understanding, at least.

  Ryan squatted down on the ground and let his head droop down between his knees.

  "... Fuck it."

  He pulled out his phone and dialled someone's number. It rang for a few moments, and then with a slight click, it connected.

  "Why are you calling me?" Kim asked, clearly a bit disgruntled. Not necessarily because of Ryan, though. He knew that Kim was working on some new project right now, and he was struggling with it. So that was probably why he was annoyed. Probably.

  "You guys have been gathering the people you know that aren't happy with the way the family does things, right?"

  "... Yeah, like you asked. They're mostly around our age, but some of them are too young to get involved in this stuff. I'd like to avoid pulling in minors, at least."

  "Of course, don't worry," Ryan replied as he stood back up. "Can you call them over to my house? Let's say... Friday?"

  "Your house? Isn't that kind of the worst place? You've got Aglecard cameras all over the place, won't they know what's happening?"

  "Oh, no, Modak disconnected the cameras from their network, we only have local access now. Told Runar it's for 'privacy reasons' or something."

  Kim stopped for a few moments, thinking. "Hm. Fine, I guess. So you're finally thinking about doing something for once?"

  Ryan smiled. He could basically hear Kim's mood improve.

  "You could say that."

  "Well, fill us in first before you come up with some stupid plot on your own."

  "Yeah, yeah, if you say so." Ryan laughed. "Talk to you later. You're coming over to the workshop later, right?"

  "Mm-hmm. See you there."

  "See you."

  Ryan hung up, but then navigated to someone else's number that he had saved. He thought about calling her for a few moments, but somehow felt too nervous for that. So, as he walked out of the university building, he texted her instead.

  'Do you have time on Friday night? I've got something pretty big in the works, and having you there would be great,' he typed out, and sent the text without hesitation, before even thinking about how that could come across. A moment later, Ryan received a call. He hesitantly answered.

  "Uh... hey?"

  "Is that your way of asking me out on a date?" Jade asked on the other end of the call, and Ryan nervously laughed.

  "That's not really what I- Wait, would you want me to ask you on a date?"

  "... Don't change the topic! But what did you mean, then?"

  Ryan couldn't help himself but smile lightly. He pulled the phone from his ear and looked at the time. "It's a bit complicated, actually. Do you want to meet for lunch? I could explain it to you then."

  "Okay, this time you're definitely asking me out on a date."

  "... Is that a no?"

  "No! I mean, yes? Wait, I'm saying 'yes' to the lunch, and 'no' to your last question," Jade awkwardly tried to explain her words. "Or rather, I would like to say 'yes', but... you know, I don't really eat... Plus, I can't get out of work right now..."

  Ryan's smile disappeared. "Oh, shit, I'm so sorry, I'm not really used to this stuff, I looked up the best-"

  "Don't worry, it's alright! How about dinner? My roommate is out with her boyfriend this week so I can't really stay out too long because I'm watching her pet, so... Maybe you'd like to come over? Around eight? You can eat, I'll have a bottle of... fake blood? That sounds weird, sorry..."

  "It doesn't sound weird at all. Alright, I'll pick some stuff up on the way. I'll see you around eight, then."

  "I'll send you the address!" Jade happily said on the other side of the call, and the two slowly hung up.

  Ryan stared down at his phone. He glanced at the question-mark that had appeared on the back of his hand.

  "Yeah... I don't know what happened either, Tiar." Ryan said with a slight laugh.

  He just wanted to get Jade's perspective as a vampire about the way the Aglecards were doing things, and ended up with a date.